In 1957, the Libeskinds moved to Kibbutz Gvat, Israel and then to Tel Aviv before moving to New York in 1959. In his autobiography, Breaking Ground: An Immigrant's Journey from Poland to Ground Zero, Libeskind spoke of how the kibbutz experience influenced his concern for green architecture.[7]

Libeskind began his career as an architectural theorist and professor, holding positions at various institutions around the world. His practical architectural career began in Milan in the late 1980s, where he submitted to architectural competitions and also founded and directed Architecture Intermundium, Institute for Architecture & Urbanism. Libeskind completed his first building at the age of 52, with the opening of the Felix Nussbaum Haus in 1998.[14] Prior to this, critics had dismissed his designs as "unbuildable or unduly assertive."[15] In 1987, Libeskind won his first design competition for housing in West Berlin, but the Berlin Wall fell shortly thereafter and the project was canceled. Libeskind won the first four projects competitions he entered.

In addition to his architectural projects, Libeskind has worked with a number of international design firms to develop objects, furniture, and industrial fixtures for interiors of buildings. He recently established a design company in Milan, Libeskind Design, which has been commissioned to work with design companies such as Fiam,[19]Artemide,[20]Jacuzzi,[21] TreP-Tre-Piu,[22] Oliviari,[23] Sawaya & Moroni,[24] Poltrona Frau,[25] and others.[26] Since 1988, Kuku has collaborated with Ola-dele Kuku on numerous projects at the Architecture Intermundium in Milano, Italy.[27]

While much of Libeskind's work has been well-received, it has also been the subject of often severe criticism.[29] Critics charge that it reflects a limited architectural vocabulary of jagged edges, sharp angles and tortured geometries,[30] that can fall into cliche, and that it ignores location and context.[31] In 2008 LA Times critic Christopher Hawthorne wrote: "Anyone looking for signs that Daniel Libeskind's work might deepen profoundly over time, or shift in some surprising direction, has mostly been doing so in vain."[32] In 2006, in the New York Times Nicolai Ouroussoff stated: "his worst buildings, like a 2002 war museum in England suggesting the shards of a fractured globe, can seem like a caricature of his own aesthetic."[30] In the UK magazine Building Design, Owen Hatherley wrote of Libeskind's students' union for London Metropolitan University: "All of its vaulting, aggressive gestures were designed to 'put London Met on the map', and to give an image of fearless modernity with, however, little of consequence."[33] William JR Curtis in Architectural Review called his Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre "a pile-up of Libeskindian clichés without sense, form or meaning" and wrote that his Hyundai Development Corporation Headquarters delivered "a trite and noisy corporate message".[31]

In response, Libeskind says he ignores critics: "How can I read them? I have more important things to read."[34]

The following projects are listed on the Studio Daniel Libeskind website. The first date is the competition, commission, or first presentation date. The second is the completion date or the estimated date of completion.